Part Thirty Six: Castle

	"Silence him!" a pained voice cried out as Caleb entered the commodious room, the Cultist in question evidently not a fan of the gunslinger's raspy singing voice. Caleb was well used to the criticism; even his fellow Chosen ones had complained about it often. What concerned the gunfighter far more was the fact that they now had almost every single weapon in the room trained directly at his own hatted head. The trap had been sprung once more, and Caleb really did not have a well formed plan of attack to counter it this time. He simply did not have the patience for it anymore. He was a brawler, and if he had to get chewed up by anything and everything his enemy was about to throw at him just to get his mission completed, then so be it.

	"Well, if you really did not fancy that, maybe you would like a little dance instead?" Caleb offered, right before he was placed in the middle of the firing squad. Caleb did indeed dance, hopping his way through a routine he liked to call "staying alive". In amongst all of his fancy footwork he also tried his best to trade fire with the people who were presently oppressing him, firing volley after volley into the sea of robes that had been assembled as a stopgap in order to try and stop him in his tracks. Due to a strange expression of predestination Caleb still found himself to be unharmed even after several more moments had passed in this fashion, and there were now several robed bodies oozing blood on the polished stone floor.

	"Too stubborn to quit, too stupid to die" the same Cultist who had spoken earlier remarked, remaining relatively safe from the betrayer's wrath due to his position on an overhanging balcony. The betrayer's hearing was far better than the Cabal Lieutenant in question would have at first suspected however, as upon stating this a volley from the gunslinger's shotgun came very close to obliterating the man's head. Caleb smiled as the Cultist drew back and out of sight once more.

	"Amateurs..." he commented before ducking behind one of the balcony's support pillars. So far this was going far better than he ever could have expected; so far he was proving to be nothing more than an unstoppable force of malice and spraying bullets. There was a balcony on either side of the large room, and other than the one Cultist above him that was directing the piece the rest seemed to have been constrained to merely taking positions on the ground level. Caleb could see pieces of marble chipping from the pillar as his aggressors tried their best to sink a shot into him. He responded in kind once more, taking down three robed men with just one casting of his buckshot. With results like these, he found that he was even beginning to enjoy himself.

	A brief flash of light suddenly became apparent in Caleb's peripheral vision, and before he knew what was happening the old gunslinger found himself hurled back against the nearest wall. Someone had started to throw dynamite. The balcony moaned and groaned from above as several of the support pillars were forced loose, but the loudest sound was that of the Cabal Lieutenant screaming. "WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING?" the man in charge cried out after recomposing himself. "Hatanoceo marana crunatus desco Shatruex!"

	"Hurts doesn't it?" Caleb shouted up at him, still possessing enough knowledge of the Cultist language to understand what the man was driving at.

	"Cruo-stragaraNa malax!" another voice boomed out from the direction in which the dynamite had previously came, making it quite clear to the both of them that whoever it was that had started throwing it still had no intention of holding back now. They were then greeted by another flash and an explosion that threatened to take out the rest of the support pillars. Realizing that his current position was now far from tenable, Caleb was forced to rush out back into the open just as the balcony started to fall apart behind him. The Cabal Lieutenant was not so lucky. The ground gave way right where he was standing, forcing him to fall onto the hard ground right before the rest of the balcony landed on top of him. Seeing that was even enough to make Caleb wince, if for nothing else but the fact that he himself had actually come extremely close to sharing the Cultist's fate. 

	He did not have much time to waste on commiseration though. As he had left his no longer safe haven he had almost immediately swooped up two Tommy Guns that had been left by two of the felled Cultists and started to fire them one in each hand akimbo style at both of the entrances and egresses, pinning down whatever resistance could be found there. He then closed his eyes and tried his best to ignore the ache in his arms as he did so, the kick from the weapons barely being marshalled by his own particularly potent  upper body strength. Firing two submachine guns at once was definitely not something he would recommend for everyone. He ground his teeth as the rattle of the two weapons started to shake its way into his mind, the noise feeling as if it were drilling itself into his head.

	Then the firing stopped. Then the rattling stopped. Then the noise stopped. Caleb opened his eyes again. Both of the drums were now empty. He then heard the sound of dozens of weapons being cocked overhead. He looked up to the other remaining balcony and saw dozens of rifles being pointed at the various parts of his person. This was then joined by the sound of more weapons being prepped from either side of him as yet more Cultists moved to reclaim the positions that Caleb had previously been successfully able to block them from. Just how many of them were there in this building? It was almost as if the entire cult had been assembled here to stop him. Caleb realized dimly that they might just be able to get their chance. He was out of options. Short of a miracle, he knew there was no way he was going to get out of here alive.

Hamish Paul Wilson
November 9, 2014